


a fresh start

by BeStillMySlashyHeart



Series: same script, different lines [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Comfort, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Alternating, POV Outsider, though the hurt is in the past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:08:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25584145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeStillMySlashyHeart/pseuds/BeStillMySlashyHeart
Summary: "About five hundred years ago, something happened and Nicolò ended up trapped at the bottom of the ocean. We found him a year ago."
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: same script, different lines [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1853176
Comments: 28
Kudos: 1260





	a fresh start

**Author's Note:**

> I enjoyed writing about how Nicky might have changed if Joe had been in the iron coffin instead of Quynh so I wanted to explore if the positions had been reversed. But also, I wanted to explore what happens afterwards, not just in the immediate aftermath like in 'under the sea', so in this one Nicky was in the water but they got him back just before they all took a one year break from each other

Nile wasn’t sure what to make of the men and women in front of her. Andy had shot her in the head and kicked her ass on the plane (admittedly Nile _had_ started that fight but that wasn’t important), Booker looked like he would really rather be passed out on the floor of a dingy bar right now, when Quynh spoke it was all soft and sweet but Nile knew, _knew_ , that she would have absolutely no problem going 100% feral on anyone who looked at her (and Andy) wrong, and Joe seemed like he’d been taking anger management classes recently and was trying desperately to put into practice the lessons he’d learned there.

And then there was Nicolò.

Booker had called him Nicky but he didn’t respond to it. Not that he responded to much, truthfully. He hovered on the edges of the group, like he wanted nothing more than to be a part of it and also to run very far away. 

Andy had left the door open when they’d walked in even though it was starting to rain and Nile saw that every other door and window in the place was wide open as well. Nicolò was constantly moving, back and forth from the table they were all sitting at to the closest open door. He’d step into the doorway for a moment and close his eyes and then come back to the table. When he was in reach, he and Joe would reach out and clasp hands. Nile caught Booker watching them as she did, a curiosity in his eyes that she felt in her own. Andy and Quynh were watching them too, but there was no curiosity, only concern and a strange sense of wonder. 

Nile didn’t ask. She wanted to, wanted to know more about all of them, but she didn’t feel comfortable pushing into what she could clearly see was something personal.

“So we really never die, huh?” She asked instead. Everyone froze.

Well, almost everyone. Nicolò didn’t break stride on his walk back to the door. His scoff was muffled by the sound of the rain. “ _Non_ ,” he answered, his accent thick. “But you might one day wish you could.” He braced himself on the door frame and stared out into the rain with a strange look on his face. “Yusuf.”

Joe was on his feet before Nicolò even finished saying his name. He crossed the room, his steps sounding purposefully loud, and placed a hand on Nicolò’s back. Nicolò reached down and took his other hand and pulled Joe behind him as he stepped outside. Nile watched as the two men stepped out of the shelter of the awning and into the downpour. Nicolò seemed to be taking deep breaths and Joe stood by, both of Nicolò’s hands in his. After a moment, Nicolò nodded and Joe wrapped his arms around him. They stood there, the rain falling on and around them, any words that might be spoken far too quiet for anyone else to hear.

Nile looked away only to find the other three still staring out at them. “What happened to him?” Nile asked quietly. 

Booker sighed. He glanced at the two women briefly and, deciding that apparently they weren’t going to answer her, replied, “this is the second time I’ve met Nicolò .”

Nile blinked. “What? But you’re-”

Booker nodded. “About five hundred years ago, something happened and Nicolò ended up trapped at the bottom of the ocean. We found him a year ago. Spent a few days reacclimating him to life above water before he and Joe took off. We,” he gestured around the table, “all took a year off and only just met back up a few days ago.” He looked out at the two men who still hadn’t moved. “He’s better than he was last time I saw him but I’ve got to imagine he’s got some issues.”

Quynh smacked him upside the back of his head. “He went through hell,” she criticized sharply.

“I know,” Booker agreed. “I didn’t say he didn’t deserve them but no one comes out of that unscathed.”

“So far,” Andy said quietly, “it seems that he needs Joe nearby and he needs to be touched. A hand on the shoulder, a hug, something. And if there’s water...” she trailed off. “Make sure Joe is with him.”

\---

Rain smelled different than the ocean. Not that he spent much time smelling the water as he drowned but he knew they were different. It was still wet, still too much water for his own liking, but it was a different kind of wet. This was something he chose, and there was shelter only a few steps away. 

Yusuf’s arms were warm and tight around him and Nicolò burrowed deeper into his hold. A soft gentle murmur washed over him, the words not quite registering. Nicolò didn’t need them too, though, he just needed Yusuf’s voice. He needed to hear it like he needed to feel his touch. 

A few lifetimes of nothing but water and iron and he was desperate for any and every reminder of another person, particularly when it was Yusuf. It had been a year (and one month, two weeks, and three days) since he’d come out of the water and he still only felt safe and sane when the other man was with him. Andromache and Quynh helped too, the few times he’d seen them since. But the new man, and now the new girl, were reminders of what he’d missed, of the life that kept going on the surface while he suffered below. 

Lips pressed to his temple. They moved with the continued onslaught of words and Nicolò focused on them. His words narrowed down to two arms around his body and two lips on his skin and the soft, sweet, gentle sounds of Yusuf’s voice. He focused on them and committed it all to memory. There were centuries of memories he’d lost himself in to try and stay sane but they were ever so slightly tainted now with the association. He needed new ones and Yusuf was ever so helpful in providing them.

Nicolò slowly tuned out the sound of the rain and focused on the other man’s voice. He was speaking Arabic, the words unfamiliar to Nicolò’s ill-practiced ear. “Who is that?” He asked, interrupting the flow. “I don’t remember that poem.”

The lips turned up in a smile. “It is an original, by Yusuf al-Kaysani, written for his love.” Nicolò leaned back just enough to look at him in surprise. Yusuf smiled softly, one hand coming up to brush the wet strands of his hair out of his face. “I have had plenty of time to write, amore mio.”

Nicolò leaned in and kissed him. Yusuf responded immediately, his hand moving to cup the back of Nicolò’s head and hold him in place while he took him apart with his lips and his tongue. Nicolò let him, more than content to be taken apart and put back together by this man.

It took an explosion and a cloud of gas break them apart.

\---

Joe used to think he knew terror but that was before Nicolò went into the ocean, before Joe got him out, got him back. He was thankful that Nicolò ever seemed to want to be more than a few feet from him at any given moment because Joe started getting panic attacks when the man was out of his sight for too long.

None of that had anything on the moments when Nicolò died in front of him. In the year (one year, one month, two weeks, four days) since Nicolò had returned to his arms, they’d stayed away from the fighting. He’d ensured that Nicolò had time and peace to adjust back to the world and in doing so, hadn’t had to lose him.

It was terrifying.

Joe had thought the worst of it was when Nicolò was slumped on the floor of the van but even then he could tell himself it was the gas that was making him sleep, not a death that was taking too long to recover from. In Merrick’s lab, he didn’t have the time or mental energy to care about himself because all of his focus was on Nicolò. Every time he died, he prayed to a god he hadn’t believed in in half a millennia that he would wake up to Nicolò’s eyes. And every time Nicolò died, Joe counted the very seconds until he came back. He wasn’t entirely certain he breathed during any of those seconds, his lungs and his body preparing to follow Nicolò if he didn’t come back. 

Then Nicolò was shot in the head and Joe forgot about the enemy, forgot about Andy being vulnerable, forgot about the new girl who was admirably saving their asses but was probably going to need a hand. He could do nothing but hover over Nicolò’s body and wait for him to breathe.

He needed to _breathe_ , dam- 

Nicolò came to with a gasp and Joe finally took a breath of his own. They gave themselves scant seconds to make sure the other was okay before they were moving, the mission needing to be finished. 

When it was over, when Merrick and all of the men shooting at them were dead, when the danger was passed, he and Nicolò pressed themselves together in the tiny backseat, Joe more than half in Nicolò’s lap, and let their hands confirm that they were okay. Quynh gripped tight to Nicolò’s leg and Andy took a hand off the wheel to reach back and grab Nicolò’s free hand but no one said a word. Later, Joe would want to kill Booker for almost taking Nicolò away from him again even as he could understand and appreciate where the man had been coming from. A year (and one month, two weeks, five days) ago, Joe would maybe have agreed with him, would have still felt the crushing weight of an eternity alone. But that was then and this was now and now he had Nicolò back and he wouldn’t suffer anyone’s attempts to take him from him again.

When they got to a safe place, a surprisingly nice apartment with running water, Joe wasted no time dragging Nicolò into the bathroom. They were both covered in blood and other bodily fluids and Joe desperately needed to get Nicolò clean for his own peace of mind. Nicolò went willingly, though he waited until Joe got in the shower first before joining him, and let Joe wash the grime away. 

“Sto bene,” Nicolò promised after the water had run clean but Joe’s touch hadn’t calmed or gentled. “'ana bikhayr.” 

Joe heard him, he did, and the feel of him warm and alive under his hands helped affirm that Nicolò was, in fact, okay, but it didn’t calm his heart. Nicolò must have heard or felt it racing because he placed a hand over it and started speaking, his Italian antiquated by today’s standards but heavenly to Joe’s ears. At some point Nicolò turned the water off but neither moved. Joe’s hands never stopped moving over Nicolò’s body, though they brushed over the back of his head with a startling frequency, and Nicolò never stopped speaking. Joe was pretty sure he was reciting Dante’s _Paradiso_ (he’d never like the Inferno) but it had been so long since he’d heard it, he couldn’t be sure. 

Eventually, long after anyone else would have been interrupted he was sure, there was a pounding knock on the door. “There’s only one bathroom,” Quynh’s soft lilt reminded them. 

Nicolò helped him out of the shower, let Joe towel them dry, and then led them out of the room. Not once did they stop touching, not even when it would have made things simpler and faster. 

Quynh met them outside with a knowing smile and said nothing. She put her hand on Nicolò’s shoulder and let it drag down his arm as he walked passed before letting them go with a gentle squeeze of his hand but still she said nothing. Joe wasn’t sure he could ever express his unending gratitude to her and Andy for somehow knowing exactly what Joe and Nicolò both needed from them. From the moment Nicolò took his first breath of air, they had been there with their support whenever either of them needed them but they’d been equally willing and ready to give them the space they needed when they needed it. Andy greeted Nicolò with the same touch when they crossed back through the living room. 

Booker didn’t meet Joe’s eyes and Nile had already passed out so Joe ushered Nicolò into one of the bedrooms. The towels dropped to the floor the moment the door snicked closed.

“Sto bene,” Nicolò said. “Sono qui,” he promised. 

“Sei qui,” Joe murmured. “Stai bene.” He repeated it even as he pressed their lips together. It wasn’t quite a kiss, his lips moving too much to really kiss Nicolò properly but it was an assurance. 

Nicolò led him over to the bed and let Joe lay on top of him, his ear over his heart. He ran his fingers through Joe’s wet hair, gently detangling the mess it had become, and resumed his recitation of _Paradiso_. 

“I never liked that one,” Joe said after a while.

“I know,” Nicolò replied. “You think _Inferno_ is better written and more interesting. But I like the happy ending.”

“You still believe they exist?” Joe looked up at him.

Nicolò smiled. “How could I not?” He tipped Joe’s chin up further with a single finger and kissed him softly. “I am here. With you.”


End file.
